Jason Logan

Jason Logan

Rod Whitman’s redo of the historic Algonquin GC should finally provide New Brunswick golf the attention it deserves.

In golf course architecture parlance, a ‘connector hole’ is one that factors into a routing as a means to get from one great hole to another.

An architect identifies sites for what will become a course’s most memorable frames, and since rarely does a parcel of land yield 18 such opportunities, he must also find Point A-to-Point B connectors. His ability to make such holes interesting, or even hidden in plain sight, is as important as his knack for identifying jaw-droppers on a topographical map.

With due respect to its beauty, people and place in Canada’s history, New Brunswick has often been viewed as the connector hole of provinces. This is reflected in its derogatory nickname, one its residents are aware of, even resigned to: The Drive-Through Province. Meaning, New Brunswick is merely part of the route for tourists from Ontario, Quebec and New England heading to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland & Labrador. This is not anecdotal. I’d driven through, but not stayed in New Brunswick, twice prior to a late-June visit. Once as a tot en route to a family vacation in Cape Breton and P.E.I., and again as a 20-something caravanning with pals from Toronto to Halifax for the Millennium. I can’t recall how much time we spent in New Brunswick when I was four, but our hungry New Year’s Eve crew at least crashed a McDonald’s in Edmunston before partying like it was 1999.

Here, though, is better proof: One of my travelling companions during this third visit grew up in P.E.I. and lives in eastern Ontario. He and his family return home every summer and in New Brunswick, he admitted, they stop only briefly in Fredericton for lunch and a stretch just off the highway at the Regent Mall. He feels shame.

This is not to say New Brunswick has nothing to offer. Hopewell Rocks, Fundy National Park and Magnetic Hill are big draws and comprise some of Canada’s most breathtaking landscapes. When it comes to places to stay, The Algonquin, in the charming seaside village of St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, is very high on any list of Canada’s best hotels. Golf? The Algonquin factors heavily there too, as its owners are hoping a current renovation will be the key to convincing club-toters to head to New Brunswick, not through it.

In a sense, Ben Cowan-Dewar was paying it forward when he had lunch with Jim Spatz, the chairman and CEO of Halifax-based Southwest Properties, which co-owns The Algonquin with New Castle Hotels & Resorts. Years ago, when Cowan-Dewar embarked on what would become Cabot Links, he picked the brain of Bandon Dunes founder Mike Keiser and eventually convinced him to become his well-moneyed partner. Spatz was no golf aficionado — in fact he wasn’t a golfer at all — but the surgeon-turned-developer was well aware of the home run Cowan-Dewar built in Cape Breton and thus sought his advice on how to bring The Algonquin’s golf course up to standards with its recently renovated hotel.

Cowan-Dewar suggested Spatz bring Rod Whitman in for a look. Whitman is the Alberta-born architect who created Cabot Links and honed his craft working for the likes of Pete Dye and Bill Coore. In fact, he helped shape much of Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s course in Inverness, Cabot Cliffs. With an ability to make bold choices and build golf courses that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are playable and enjoyable for everyone, Cowan-Dewar knew Whitman could pay homage to The Algonquin’s original designer, Donald Ross, while taking the course to another level. That made him the perfect partner for Spatz, who’d done that very thing with the historic Algonquin Hotel, where his attention to detail is evident at every turn. Halfway through the golf course renovation, Spatz is thrilled.

“These have been one of the most interesting two to three years of my life,” Spatz said. “I’ve gotten to experience how a great golf course architect looks at a golf course philosophically.”

Not that the layout — originally designed in 1894 and redone by Thomas McBroom in 2000 — was bad. With its back nine resting above the Passamaquoddy Bay, it was blessed with a couple of natural cliff-top green sites on holes 12 and 13. The 12th, in fact, always had a case for being Canada’s prettiest par 3.

Already a beauty, the par-3 12th hole got longer with a new tee deck.

Whitman, with his right-hand man Keith Cutten, has drastically improved them. He rebuilt the 12th’s rather dull green, surrounded it with trademark artistic bunkers, and created a new back tee deck closer to the water after felling a crop of view-obstructing trees. That’s created a different, more interesting, angle for the tee shot, which can now play upwards of 170 yards. As a bonus, axing those trees also opened up bay views behind the par-5 11th, another hole Whitman’s redone. Upon cresting the hill 200 yards out, you see nothing but blue — water and sky — on the horizon.

What can tree removal do? Check out the view behind the 11th green

The improvement to the 13th is even more impressive. The hole previously angled towards a green on the water from an inland, hilltop tee deck. Whitman, upon walking the property, climbed an apple tree and discovered a perfect tee site hard on the coastline to create a true ocean-side hole. All it took was another whack of trees to come down and, like the clear-cutting to create that new deck on the 12th, that created much better vistas elsewhere, such as on the green on the par-3 14th (a connector hole, by the way), the tee deck on the 15th and down the modified par-4 16th. There is also a movement afoot to move the green on 13 even closer to the shore, though Whitman will need permission and cooperation from the provincial government with a protected Passamaquoddy shell midden present.

Thanks to a new tee deck hard on the water the par-4 13th will be a stunner.

Last but not least, Whitman built a new 10th hole, which might be the coolest on the course. A long par 3 beginning mere yards from the beautiful clubhouse patio and playing towards the bay (but not on it), it also offers unobstructed views of the water and sets the tone for what will become one of the best four-hole stretches in Canada when fully complete. They are, it should be noted, Cabot-esque.

The brand new par-3 10th is a great way to kick off the back nine.

The front nine, however, pales in comparison to the back, at least in terms of its entirely inland location, and what Whitman is able to do with it will largely determine how The Algonquin is perceived. He is redoing two holes by building new greens, but other planned changes are largely cosmetic — new bunkers and touch-ups to match what he’s doing on the back. I have little doubt Whitman will create aesthetic intrigue here. After all, he is one of the world’s best golf course shapers, and to steal from Algonquin head professional Jason Porter, “he can peel an apple with a bulldozer.” But the suspicion among our assembled group was that even more could be done — more downed trees, perhaps, to open up longer sightlines, or bigger design changes — if Whitman and Cutten were given more time and money. Regardless, those first four back nine holes will ultimately be worth the greens fee alone when the renovation is finished next summer. And despite its association with Ross and its previous remodel nearly 20 years ago, there is no doubt that moving forward The Algonquin will be known as a Rod Whitman golf course. Given what the soft-spoken genius did at Cabot Links, that alone should be enough to draw architecture enthusiasts in.

FREDERICTON’S FINEST

As Mike Keiser — who founded Bandon Dunes in Oregon, partnered in Cabot Links in Nova Soctia, and now has Sand Valley in Wisconsin on the go — has said, “One course is a curiousity, two is a destination.”

Though there is evidently available and relatively afordable seaside land on the Bay of Fundy, it’s a long shot that The Algonquin would one day have two golf courses. So what’s a golfer who’s come a long way to play the renovated course to do if he or she wants some variety?

Enter Fredericton, which is just over an hour’s drive from St. Andrews-by-the-Sea and offers some pretty solid golf complements to The Algonquin.

Kingswood Park, largely a Darrell Huxham design, leads the way here. A course that once cracked SCOREGolf’s Top 100 ranking, it’s a spacious, enjoyable track with several stunning holes and all of them right out in front of you, meaning there is no guesswork involved for first-timers. The finishing stretch, starting with the signature 14th, is exceptional, but so too is the opening frame (pictured above) and the short par-4 eighth and 15th, which share a wide fairway dotted with pot bunkers. With a peak rate of $89, there is great value at Kingswood, which neighbours an entertainment centre complete with candlepin bowling, an arcade, lazer tag and a play zone.

Kingswood recently assumed operational control of another Fredericton favourite, Mactaquac, which is located in a provincial park of the same name and had been run by the government. The tree-lined beauty is in need of some TLC, which those at Kingswood are promising to provide.

There is also a new course in Fredericton called West Hills that currently has nine holes open with another nine scheduled to be complete next summer. Part of a residential community, it suffered from many stops and starts over the years because of bankruptcy and ownership changes. It’s now back in the hands of the original developer, Hill Bros., and the result has been worth the wait. Though built on largely flat land — there are some nice elevation changes on the yet-to-be-completed holes — the course is intriguing and the restriant designer Huxham and his brother Warren showed in not overshaping fairways and transition areas was wise. It was also refreshing to see them open up sightlines from one hole to another through tree removal. Certainly West Hills has great potential. — Logan